Trapped (Bullied Book 4) (Bullied Series) Vera Hollins (best large ereader txt) 📖

“Are you okay?” he asked me. “Does your cheek hurt?”

I looked at him and winced at the blood that trickled from the side of his head down his face. His cheek was already bruised, the cut on it bloody. “A little, but I’m okay. You?”

He wore a grimace as he studied my cheek, and I assumed a bruise was forming there. “Trying to be.” He cursed. “Those sons of bitches.” He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry for anything.”

“Yes, I do. It’s my fault.”

“No, Blake, it’s not your fault. Don’t do this to yourself. It’s not your fault they’re deranged.”

“But you would never have gotten into this situation if it weren’t for me.”

“Hey.” I shimmied closer to him, until our bodies were almost touching. I bumped his shoulder with mine, managing a small smile. “You know guilt doesn’t look attractive on you,” I teased him, hoping to distract him enough to slow his erratic breathing. The tormented look on his face had been constant ever since we stepped in here. “Or fear. Where is that big, scary Blake?”

He didn’t answer; his eyes were firmly closed as he took deep breaths.

“Just give me some time,” he said after a while. “Talk about something.”

“About what?”

“Anything will do.”

“Okay, so…” I looked over the depressing gray bricks surrounding us in search of anything to talk about. “I love to sing in front of a mirror and pretend I’m in my own music video.”

I formed a smile, even though I didn’t feel like smiling. If this had been any other day, I would have been embarrassed, but now, I needed a distraction myself, a piece of normalcy in this completely abnormal situation.

“I take my deodorant and pretend it’s a mic, and I sing my heart out. I’ve lost my voice too many times because I’ve pretended I’m Adele, hitting all those ridiculously high notes. Once, my youngest cousin, who was nine at the time, caught me doing it, and he couldn’t stop laughing about it. He said I sounded like a chicken on helium. He even told my other cousins, and they goofed on me for weeks.”

I wasn’t aware of when my tears had started. I missed my cousins. I missed my family.

“I’ve been singing ever since I was little. My mom said I used to sing other children to sleep in kindergarten. You could say they were my first audience.” I let out an empty chuckle and blinked quickly to clear the tears from my vision. “And speaking of firsts, my first kiss was so stupid—if you can even count it as a kiss. I was four, and a boy in my preschool class decided it would be nice to put his lips on mine in front of everyone. He said he saw his parents do it and wanted to see what it was all about.” I giggled, shaking my head.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything then, but I wrote on his face with a Sharpie while he was sleeping the next day. By the time he woke up, his whole face was covered in purple hearts and flowers.”

He smiled for the first time, still resting his head against the wall with his eyes closed. “Good girl.” He wasn’t breathing as hard as before. “I never told you how I felt when I heard you sing at Hayden’s place,” he continued. “You had that look on your face I’d never seen before. You were so into it, and it was like I was seeing a completely different person. You had me dumbstruck right then and there. You’re an amazing singer.”

A flicker of warmth spread through the solid cold in my chest. “Thank you. I’ve always been so insecure about my voice, so…yeah. Thanks.”

He looked at me. “You have nothing to be insecure about. You’re smart, talented…beautiful. You’re so beautiful, Jessie.”

His words and the soft look in his eyes soothed me, making me feel like we were just two people hanging out with each other. There were no ropes that bit into our skin and limited our freedom, no walls confining us to uncertainty and fear. All this fear…we weren’t getting out of there alive, were we? All these memories…they were just blips on our horizon that would soon be filled with darkness.

He moved closer to me so that our lips were only inches away from each other. “Kiss me,” he whispered.

I leaned in and pressed my lips against his, feeling like crying and losing myself in him all at once. I was afraid. I was afraid this could be our last kiss, something deep within me telling me something terrible was going to happen, even though my mind still refused to accept that possibility. I tugged at my ropes reflexively. I wished I could hug him and hold him close, but I couldn’t, and it was too painful.

He pulled away, his eyes the softest shade of gray. My chest tightened at the blood on his face, and I wanted to do anything to make it go away—to help him heal. To stay with him and let us both heal. Together.

“Thank you for distracting me,” he said. “Now…”

He blinked, and the softness in his gaze was gone, replaced by calculation. He twisted and turned his body so that he was on his knees, looking like old Blake—in control and strong.

“Kneel with your back turned to me,” he instructed me.

I angled my head to the side. “Why?”

“So you can try to reach for my belt.” I looked at his black leather belt with a frown. “The buckle is actually the handle of a knife. You need to grab the buckle and pull it to the right to take the knife out. I’m going to cut our ties off.”

My eyebrows rose high. Wow. “I never would’ve thought you’d have something like this up your sleeve. How did you come up with that?”

His eyes were